The antiviral compond avarol, a process for its production, pharmaceutical compositions containing said compound, and a method of combating viruses therewith, are disclosed.
Optically pure enantiomers of avarol are obtained. The enantiomers of avarol are demonstrated to be highly effective inhibitors of .alpha.-glucosidase and .alpha.-mannosidase. Other enzymes assayed were not inhibited by these optically pure compounds. Inhibition of these two enzymes is useful for a variety of assays and probes, and offers particular utility in the treatment of retroviral infection-associated syndromes, such as AIDS.
Terpene-quinone with antitumor activity defined from a cyclocondensation reaction of Diels-Alder, used to obtain families or series of said compounds having a new structure and presenting a cytotoxic activity to cellular cultures P-388, A-549, HT-29 and MEL-28, with levels of IC.sub.50 lower than 1 microgram per unit of milliliter.
